LL-L "Language education" 2008.01.10 (02) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  10 January 2008 - Volume 02
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From: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L "Language education" 2008.01.09 (03) [E]

 Dear Heather,

you wrote as an answer to Gael:

I have said it before on this forum and will repeat it at the risk of
sounding boring - teaching standard language in whatever country allows
those who do have mutually unintelligible dialects of the same language to
communicate.And that surely is a good thing? It allows access to all walks
of life to everyone. If there was no attempt at a standard language, young
people would be restricted to working in the (small) area where they were
intelligible which would be a retrograde step.

It is NOT boring at all to repeat a clear truth and convincement!
I fully agree with all you wrote in your mail.

Let me add just one thought more: isn't it dangerous for a language to loose
its preciseness, the possibilities of dealing with small but important
differences in e.g. sciences e.a.? We have seen this kind of development in
Low Saxon, and it led (and still leads) to the fact that it became a very
unimportant minority language with only a certain neat social background.
Maybe American (English) will escape this fate, but NOT by being simplified-
quite the opposite: for my opinion it should continue to gather the best
of the immigrant's languages as it has done in the past.

I think it is not necessary to show up here the social conflicts arising if
(in special younger) people are unable to deal with the official language of
their country. Their *legal* possibilities to climb up the ladder of social
ranking will forever remain very restricted.

Allerbest

Jonny Meibohm

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From: Marcel Bas <roepstem at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language education" 2008.01.09 (05) [AE]

Hi Elsie,

You wrote about the television programmes: "which tends to broadcast
mixed-language
kiddie shows"

Can you tell me if Kid's Newsroom also broadcasts in Afrikaans? They used to
broadcast in Xhosa, Zulu, Venda, Tswana (among others) and in English, but *
not* in Afrikaans.
I went to the embassy back in May to talk (and complain) about this language
discrimination. The embassador said that there is no reason why the show is
not aired in Afrikaans when it is aired in English. She said this because
the main argument for the discrimination of Afrikaans is that social
networks of Afrikaans speakers (both coloured and white) are more intact
that those of black peoples in rural areas. These kids need news and
information on where to go to when they are in need. Children in black
communities usually only speak their own language, so the show has to be
broadcast in one of the African languages. So why is it aired in English,
then?

So she could make a plan with people from the SABC. What's more, Kid's
Newsroom was financed by a Dutch organisation, Free Voice. I think that the
least that we can expect from a Dutch organisation is that it supports the
promotion of Afrikaans.

So is the show in Afrikaans, or is the language still being ignored?

Best regards,

Marcel.

•

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